Press release No. 171 of 30 April 2024 Rate of increase in employment continued to slow in March 2024

Press release No. 171 of 30 April 2024

Persons in employment resident in Germany, March 2024
0.0% on the previous month (seasonally adjusted)
+0.1% on the previous month (not seasonally adjusted)
+0.2% on the same month a year earlier

WIESBADEN- Roughly 45.7 million persons resident in Germany were in employment in March 2024. According to provisional calculations of the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), the seasonally adjusted number of persons in employment rose slightly by 8,000 (0.0%) compared with the previous month. In January and February 2024, the number of persons in employment also increased slightly by 4,000 and 15,000, respectively, compared with the previous month.

Without seasonal adjustment, the number of persons in employment in March 2024 rose by 52,000 (+0.1%) from February 2024, coinciding with the start of the spring upturn. The increase was less pronounced, however, than the March average of the years 2022 and 2023 (+87,000 people).

Slower upward trend year on year

Compared with March 2023, the number of persons in employment in March 2024 was up 0.2%, or 100,000. The year-on-year rate of change in February 2023 stood at 1.0%, but then fell by half to 0.5% by September 2023. In January and February 2024, it was 0.4% and 0.3%, respectively. Compared with the previous year, the long-term upward trend on the labour market therefore continued in March at its slower pace.

Employment figures in the 1^st quarter of 2024 up 0.1% on the previous quarter after seasonal adjustment

In the first quarter of 2024, the average number of persons in employment whose place of employment was in Germany (domestic concept) was roughly 45.8 million according to provisional calculations. After seasonal adjustment, the number of persons in employment thus rose by 38,000, or 0.1%, on the previous quarter. Detailed results for the first quarter of 2024 will be released on 17 May 2024.

Adjusted unemployment rate at 3.2% in March 2024

According to results of the labour force survey, 1.52 million people were unemployed in March 2024. This represented an increase of 233,000, or 18.1%, compared with March 2023. The unemployment rate rose to 3.4% (March 2023: 2.9%).

Adjusted for seasonal and irregular effects, the number of unemployed stood at 1.42 million in March 2024, which was an increase of 7,000 on February 2024 (+0.5%). Compared with the previous month, the adjusted unemployment rate remained unchanged at 3.2%.

Methodological notes:

The differing comparative periods must be taken into account in all press releases on short-term indicators. Short-term economic monitoring focuses on comparisons with the previous month or previous quarter. These reflect short-term economic trends. Year-on-year comparisons, by contrast, enable long-term comparisons of levels and are hardly influenced by seasonal fluctuations.

When the number of persons in employment was first calculated for the reference month of March 2024, the provisional monthly and quarterly employment results for 2023 and for January and February 2024 were recalculated as part of the regular revision of national accounting results. For this purpose, all additional sources of employment statistics that had become available by the time of calculation were taken into account. As regards the monthly employment figures, the recalculation resulted in year-on-year change rates which, for January 2023 as well as for January and February 2024, are 0.1% percentage points lower than the results published earlier. These are the only changes that resulted from the recalculation.

The number of persons in employment from the employment accounts differs from that of the labour force survey, which has been integrated into the microcensus. The differences are mainly due to the different conceptual approaches (national or domestic concept) of the two statistical systems. Background information on the differences in the results is available in the explanatory notes (only in German) on the statistics. For information on the microcensus and the labour force survey please refer to the relevant theme page (only in German) on the website of the Federal Statistical Office.

Persons in employment and unemployed persons are counted according to the employment status concept of the International Labour Organization (ILO). Therefore, the unemployment figures shown here differ from registered unemployment as determined and published by the Federal Employment Agency in accordance with the German Social Code. In the European Statistical System, the results of the labour force surveys are used as a standard basis for calculating unemployment rates.

More information:

A table containing monthly results on the number of persons in employment (unadjusted values and seasonally adjusted values) from the employment accounts is shown on the employment page of the Federal Statistical Office's (Destatis) website. Tables containing unemployment results (only in German) from the labour force survey including the unemployment rate are also available on this page. Detailed data and long time series are available from the GENESIS-Online database. Data on persons in employment from the employment accounts are available in tables 13321-0001 (months), 13321-0002 (quarters) and 81000-0011 (years). Monthly data on persons in employment and unemployed persons from the labour force survey can be found in tables 13231-0001 (overview), 13321-0002 (unemployed persons, persons in employment and economically active population) and 13231-0003 (unemployment rates).

Labour market results are also available on Dashboard Germany at www.dashboard-deutschland.de (only in German). This data portal of the Federal Statistical Office combines up-to-date indicators from official statistics producers and other data providers on the topics of the economy, finance, health and mobility. The portal also contains the interactive Economic Pulse Monitor (Pulsmesser für die Wirtschaft) tool (only in German) for real-time economic monitoring.

Special webpage on skilled labour:

A special webpage of the Federal Statistical Office combines facts and figures on the subject of skilled labour (www.destatis.de/fachkraefte) (only in German). It provides data on demography, employment, economic activity, education and immigration. The information offered ranges from projections of the future size of the labour force to analyses of the labour supply and data on labour migration and the vocational training market. New information is added continually.

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